Four Ways to Improve Your Strategic Thinking Skills Today



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Strategic thinking is often considered essential to an organization's successful performance. Some have even advocated for companies to develop the strategic thinking skills of their executives and other staff as a core competency. How can strategic thinking skills be developed? But first, here's a definition.

“Strategic thinking is a distinctive management activity whose purpose is to discover novel, imaginative strategies which can rewrite the rules of the competitive game; and to envision potential futures significantly different from the present. Furthermore, strategic thinking is specified as being conceptual, systems-oriented, directional (linking the future with the past), and opportunistic.”
— Ellen F. Goldman


In other words, strategic thinking is a process used to broaden an individual's perspective to achieve successful outcomes such as competitive advantage. And it can happen at every level of the organization; it's not just for executives.

Here are four specific things you can do to improve your strategic thinking skills.

1. Schedule Time for Strategic Thinking

You are investing in your success as well as that of the organization. Find the time to focus on strategic thinking. A tip is to place a recurring event on your calendar to reserve time for strategic thinking activities.

2. Monitor the Big Picture Including Trends

The default focus at most organizations is on what’s directly ahead. However, "peripheral vision"—including keeping sight of the big picture and industry trends—is essential for long-term success. Some tips follow. Keep abreast of industry organizations and publications. Build external networks to help you best scan the competitive landscape. Determine the unique perspective that your role provides, and define its favorable impact on the organization’s vision, mission, and/or strategic objectives.

3. Ask Questions to Uncover Patterns

Further to your mindfulness of the big picture and understanding of changes in the industry, you can put strategic thinking to work by asking yourself and others questions. A few examples follow. "What if _____?" questions are frequently effective in helping one "see around the corner." And variations such as "If _____, then _____?" often yield insights as well.


4. Embrace Uncertainty and Conflict

Strategic thinking involves envisioning the future and potential proactive ways the organization can change to remain competitive and successful. You should accept that the future is uncertain, and challenging assumptions by asking questions and other tactics may make some people uncomfortable. Remaining mindful of those aspects will help you stay the course in regularly practicing strategic thinking and securing the benefits summarized in this article.

Conclusion

By sharpening your strategic thinking skills, you benefit both yourself and your organization. It helps you make a greater contribution to the business—which may also support your advancement—and it helps the company enjoy greater competitive advantage and long-term success. So, start work on your strategic thinking skills today!

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Bibliography

Atsmon, Yuval (2017, May 2). How to Unleash Your Strategic Thinking. Digital article. McKinsey & Company.

Bonn, Ingrid (2005, June). Improving Strategic Thinking: A Multilevel Approach.
Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 26 (5). DOI: 10.1108/01437730510607844.

Cowan, N. (2001, February). The Magical Number 4 in Short-Term Memory: A Reconsideration of Mental Storage Capacity.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24 (1): 87-119.

Dixit, Avinash K. and Nelebuff, Barry J. (1993).
Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

Goldman, Ellen F. (2007, Summer). Strategic Thinking at the Top.
MIT Sloan Management Review, 48 (4): 75-81.

Graffius, Scott M. (2016).
Thinking Strategically and Acting Tactically. Winnetka, CA: Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions.

Reynolds, K. (2013). Strategic Thinking for Today's Project Managers. Paper presented at PMI Global Congress 2013—North America, New Orleans, LA. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

Syrett, Michael and Devine, Marion (2012).
Managing Uncertainty: Strategies for Surviving and Thriving in Turbulent Times. London, United Kingdom: Profile Books.



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About the Author

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Scott M. Graffius is an agile project management consultant, practitioner, award-winning author, and keynote speaker. Content from his books, speaking engagements, and more has been used by businesses, governments, and universities, including Gartner, Cisco, RSA, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the United States Department of Energy, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M, and others. Thinkers360 named Scott a Top 20 Global Thought Leader and Influencer.

His full bio is available here.

Connect with Scott on:


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About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

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Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.

There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.

With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions,
Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:

  • Implement and use the most popular agile framework―Scrum;
  • Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement; and
  • Support innovation and drive competitive advantage.

Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”

Winner of 17 first place awards.

Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.



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About
Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

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Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.

Based on actual events,
Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.

The award-winning book by
Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.



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The short link for this article is
https://bit.ly/4-strategic.
This article was first published here. Later—on August 24, 2021—the article was posted to LinkedIn
here as well.


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© Copyright 2020 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.




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Dropbox Company (Nira) Taps into Scott M. Graffius’ Expertise in Strategic Planning

BY SCOTT M. GRAFFIUS | ScottGraffius.com

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Introduction

In 2024, Dropbox, a leader in cloud storage and collaboration, broadened its vision by
acquiring Nira, a company focused on boosting team productivity through innovative tools. This acquisition aligned with the launch of Dropbox Dash for Business, an AI-powered universal search tool designed to streamline workflows for over 1 billion knowledge workers worldwide.

Scott M. Graffius is honored that Dropbox company Nira has recognized his expertise in strategic planning by featuring his work in their
article on retrospective meetings, credited as "Adapted by FYI from Scott Graffius" and "www.scottgraffius.com." Views follow.

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This nod highlights the power of strategic planning in fostering clarity and impact—core values that resonate with Dropbox’s mission. This article explores how this recognition underscores the rising value of structured collaboration in today’s dynamic work landscape.

Main Body

Impact mapping turns abstract goals into actionable steps. It addresses four key questions—Why? Who? How? What?—to create a visual roadmap linking objectives, stakeholders, desired impacts, and deliverables. By charting the "shortest path" to success, it helps teams prioritize the most effective actions. Nira’s article on retrospective meetings—a process where teams reflect on past sprints/projects to improve future outcomes—demonstrates how impact mapping elevates this practice. By charting the effects of deliverables on key stakeholders, teams can identify what delivered value and where refinements are needed, transforming retrospectives into a springboard for progress.

Dropbox’s 2024 acquisition of Nira amplifies this emphasis on productivity and alignment. With Dash for Business, Dropbox addresses information overload by integrating search across platforms like Google Workspace and Asana, tapping into an $8 billion universal search market set to double in size. Impact mapping complements this innovation by offering strategic clarity, enabling teams to maximize tools. Nira’s inclusion of Graffius’ work signals how strategic planning bridges intent and execution, aligning with Dropbox’s aim to simplify collaboration.

Conclusion

For Graffius, recognition from Dropbox's Nira is a meaningful affirmation of universal relevance of strategic planning. He is eager to see how Dropbox continues to embed strategic clarity into its growing suite of solutions. This milestone strengthens his commitment to advancing strategic planning, shaping the future of collaboration with precision and purpose.

To learn more about impact mapping, read
this article.

Read on for:

  • About Nira,
  • About Dropbox,
  • About Scott M. Graffius,
  • How to Cite This Article,
  • and more.

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About Nira

Nira, acquired by Dropbox, is a content governance platform that provides a suite of in-depth functionality to protect cloud files from unauthorized access. With Nira, Dropbox designed a custom solution built directly into Dash, so businesses can easily protect confidential documents in just a few clicks. Admins can now see everything that’s been shared in their company, across every major content platform, in one place. Then, they can identify sensitive content and manage bulk changes for any number of assets at once—eliminating a previously tedious and manual document-by-document process.
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About Dropbox

Dropbox is the one place to keep life organized and keep work moving. With more than 700 million registered users across approximately 180 countries, it’s on a mission to design a more enlightened way of working. Dropbox is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has employees around the world. For more information, visit https://dropbox.com.

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About Scott M. Graffius

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Scott M. Graffius sparks breakthroughs in AI, agile, and project management/PMO leadership as a globally recognized practitioner, researcher, thought leader, award-winning author, and international public speaker.

Graffius has generated more than USD $1.9 billion in business value for organizations served, including Fortune 500 companies. Businesses and industries range from technology (including R&D and AI) to entertainment, financial services, and healthcare, government, social media, and more.

Graffius leads the professional services firm Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions, along with its subsidiary Exceptional Agility. These consultancies offer strategic and tactical advisory, training, embedded talent, and consulting services to public, private, and government sectors. They help organizations enhance their capabilities and results in agile, project management, program management, portfolio management, and PMO leadership, supporting innovation and driving competitive advantage. The consultancies confidently back services with a Delighted Client Guarantee™. Graffius is a former vice president of project management with a publicly traded provider of diverse consumer products and services over the Internet. Before that, he ran and supervised the delivery of projects and programs in public and private organizations with businesses ranging from e-commerce to advanced technology products and services, retail, manufacturing, entertainment, and more. He has experience with consumer, business, reseller, government, and international markets.

He is the author of two award-winning books.
Organizations around the world invite Graffius to speak on tech (including AI), agile, project management, program management, portfolio management, and PMO leadership. He has developed and delivered unique and compelling talks and workshops. To date, Graffius has delivered 91 sessions across 25 countries. Select examples of events include Agile Trends Gov, BSides (Newcastle Upon Tyne), Conf42 Quantum Computing, DevDays Europe, DevOps Institute, DevOpsDays (Geneva), Frug’Agile, IEEE, Microsoft, Scottish Summit, Scrum Alliance RSG (Nepal), Techstars, and W Love Games International Video Game Development Conference (Helsinki), and more. With an average rating of 4.81 (on a scale of 1-5), sessions are highly valued.

Prominent businesses, professional associations, government agencies, and universities have featured Graffius and his work including content from his books, talks, workshops, and more. Select examples include:
  • Adobe,
  • American Management Association,
  • Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute,
  • Bayer,
  • BMC Software,
  • Boston University,
  • Broadcom,
  • Cisco,
  • Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts Germany,
  • Computer Weekly,
  • Constructor University Germany,
  • Data Governance Success,
  • Deimos Aerospace,
  • DevOps Institute,
  • EU's European Commission,
  • Ford Motor Company,
  • GoDaddy,
  • Harvard Medical School,
  • Hasso Plattner Institute Germany,
  • IEEE,
  • Innovation Project Management,
  • Johns Hopkins University,
  • Journal of Neurosurgery,
  • Lam Research (Semiconductors),
  • Leadership Worthy,
  • Life Sciences Trainers and Educators Network,
  • London South Bank University,
  • Microsoft,
  • NASSCOM,
  • National Academy of Sciences,
  • New Zealand Government,
  • Oracle,
  • Pinterest Inc.,
  • Project Management Institute,
  • SANS Institute,
  • SBG Neumark Germany,
  • Singapore Institute of Technology,
  • Torrens University Australia,
  • TBS Switzerland,
  • Tufts University,
  • UC San Diego,
  • UK Sports Institute,
  • University of Galway Ireland,
  • US Department of Energy,
  • US National Park Service,
  • US Tennis Association,
  • Veleučilište u Rijeci Croatia,
  • Verizon,
  • Virginia Tech,
  • Warsaw University of Technology,
  • Wrike,
  • Yale University,
  • and many others.

Graffius has been actively involved with the Project Management Institute (PMI) in the development of professional standards. He was a member of the team which produced the
Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures—Second Edition. Graffius was a contributor and reviewer of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge—Sixth Edition, The Standard for Program Management—Fourth Edition, and The Practice Standard for Project Estimating—Second Edition. He was also a subject matter expert reviewer of content for the PMI’s Congress. Beyond the PMI, Graffius also served as a member of the review team for two of the Scrum Alliance’s Global Scrum Gatherings.

Graffius has a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a focus in Human Factors. He holds eight professional certifications:

  • Certified SAFe 6 Agilist (SA),
  • Certified Scrum Professional - ScrumMaster (CSP-SM),
  • Certified Scrum Professional - Product Owner (CSP-PO),
  • Certified ScrumMaster (CSM),
  • Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO),
  • Project Management Professional (PMP),
  • Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (LSSGB), and
  • IT Service Management Foundation (ITIL).

He is an active member of the Scrum Alliance, the Project Management Institute (PMI), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

He divides his time between Los Angeles and Paris, France.

Thought Leader | Public Speaker | Agile Scrum Book | Agile Transformation Book | Blog | Photo | X | LinkedIn | Email

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How to Cite This Article


Graffius, Scott M. (2025, March 21).
Reporting Errors in 'Frontiers in Public Health': A Case Study. Available at: https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/dropbox-taps-into-scott-m-graffius-expertise-in-strategic-planning.html.

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)


DOI: (coming soon)


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Content Acknowledgements

This article includes brief excerpts from content ('12 Tricks for Running a Retrospective Meeting that People Actually Enjoy') by Dropbox company Nira, attributed and used under fair use for news reporting and analysis. Dropbox name and mark are the property of Dropbox Inc. Nira is the property of Dropbox Inc.

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Post-Publication Notes

If there's an update after this article is published, the information will appear here.

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Copyright

Copyright © Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved.

Content on this site—including text, images, videos, and data—may not be used for training or input into any artificial intelligence, machine learning, or automatized learning systems, or published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.






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